Holy Spirit

Today I am impressed by the importance of the Holy Spirit. He is unique to each of us as He resides in us and we allow Him to lead us and be Lord of our lives.

I was saved for as long as I can remember. I can not recall a time when I didn't know that Baby Jesus came and died for me on the cross. When I was a very little girl and had no concept of geography, I remember thinking that Israel was in the field behind our house. On the horizon, I saw a telephone pole and thought it was the cross. I grew up and learned history and geography and read the Bible and grew in knowledge of Jesus and God, and that kept me holding on until I met Holy Spirit. However, I did not have the power to free myself from depression or fear or the lies that the enemy told me about myself.

I met Holy Spirit when I was 19. As I grew in Him, He introduced me to myself and to a deeper relationship with Yahweh. As I grew in Holy Spirit, I received the power to break free of depression and the lies of the enemy and now I am learning to be fearless.

So many people in the society we live in have been introduced to the concepts of God and Jesus, but they have not met Holy Spirit. Without Holy Spirit, we only have part of the trinity and therefore cannot know Yahweh fully nor can we know ourselves and our purpose fully.

Holy Spirit is not just the tag-along, impotent third-wheel in the triune Godhead. He is, in fact, the One who empowers us to be all that Yahweh called us to be from the beginning. How insidious of the enemy to take Him out of our churches and society! Nobody complains that he's siphoned all the gas out of the car because hey, they still have a car and they can shine it up and make it pretty and point to it and say, "See my car?"

But a car without gas cannot fulfill its purpose and a Christian without Holy Spirit cannot fulfill his or her purpose. We cannot know Yahweh to the depths of who He is. We cannot even know ourselves. So many people walk away from the church because they see the lack of power even while being promised the power that is inherent in Holy Spirit! They become disheartened looking at a car that just sits in the driveway all day. They think that maybe if they sell the car, they can get something more useful, so they do.

If only they knew that the car just needs a little gas, the Christian just needs Holy Spirit, and then we can get going!

There is a reason Holy Spirit is called the Promise of the Father (Acts 1:4). Receiving the promise will change your life. I promise! ;)

Oh, thank You, Holy Spirit, for choosing to dwell inside of me!

Engage

When I teach, there are times when a concept just doesn't click in a student's mind. They often become frustrated at this point, which is understandable. It is very frustrating when a concept is just beyond reach, when all of the pieces of a puzzle are in front of you but you just can't figure out how to put the pieces together. It is even more frustrating when it is something you know you should know, you know you should be able to understand, but it's just not working.

It is at this point that a student has a choice to make. They can keep working at understanding a concept, maybe attempting to fit the puzzle pieces together in different ways or spending extra time on the problem, or they can give up. I feel like many students have given up as early as kindergarten that that is why, when they get to me in middle school and high school, they are so far behind.

Of course, if you don't give up, that's where I, the teacher, can come in and help you and encourage you to get the concept. I might try presenting the concept in a different way or giving you extension activities to help you practice the concept. Of course, if I do these things and you do not engage in them, you will never understand the concept I am presenting to you because, even though you seem to be trying, you've really given up on the inside.

I think that the Kingdom walk is often like this. We try to remember a concept--a Truth, a Word--that Yahweh spoke to us before time but it just doesn't click in our minds. Often that is because it is so contrary to everything we've ever experienced before and everything we've seen out there in the world. It's like we have to unlearn the false concepts before we can even begin to assimilate Yahweh's Truth.

I get frustrated sometimes because I know I should know this! Sometimes I thought I had it, only to have a more advanced problem presented to me and I feel like I'm starting all over again with this concept. Like my students, I have a choice. Do I engage and allow Yahweh to teach me with extension activities and new presentations of the Word or do I give up, walk away, and decide that there really wasn't any truth to this to begin with?

Frustration is not a good reason to walk away, especially when you know that Yahweh is a faithful and capable teacher and He is able to present His truths in a way that you will be able to understand it. I am a firm believer that anyone can learn anything if they put forth the time and effort to doing so. Yes, in public school situations, we don't have an infinite amount of time to devote to one concept for one student in a class of 25 when we have so much to cover before the school year ends. However, Yahweh is the master of time! He is eternal and He literally has all the time in the world to teach you something if you are willing to put forth the effort.

If you keep going, you will get it. In fact, the more you engage, the faster you will get it. Sometimes, we just have to remember Whose we are and that He has already put everything in place for us to have what we need.

Misjudged

1 Corinthians 2:15 reads thus, "But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one."

Tonight, I finally realized something that has been bothering me about my interactions with people out in the world. People treat me as someone who is not me. They treat me as if I do not have clean hands and a pure heart. It has been frustrating me how they react to some of the things that I say or do, or the mistakes that I make.

I feel like I should be treated as a good-hearted person who very rarely does anything intentionally malicious. No, I'm not perfect and I make mistakes and I have bad days, but overall my heart is pure and I am pro- everybody. I want people to succeed, to be happy, to find Yahweh, even if I snap at them occasionally or they frustrate me. It has confused the ever loving daylights out of me why anyone would be otherwise. Why would you NOT want that for all people? It has confused me as to why someone would treat me like I am otherwise.

I suppose that's all they know. If they assume that everyone is malicious and attempting to find ways to undermine people, they will see that in me. Never mind that they don't know me at all if that is how they see me. This is why the verse above applies here. People cannot judge me if they can't even see me. If they think I am being malicious, they have no vision about me. Yet, people with eyes of the spirit can see the truth.

It is also possible, I think, that some people care more about the result than the intention. I am not that way at all. To me, it is all about the heart. Did you do something with a good heart and not have the best results? Yeah, I may be frustrated if I have to clean up your mess, but I am not at all angry with you or against you. Other people might be. This still confuses me. There is another verse that says "man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart." To me, that could also read "man looks at the results, but Yahweh looks at the motivation." I have endless grace for people with good hearts and attitudes... Why can't everybody?

The question becomes: How do we respond in these situations?

I spent over a decade hiding from society because I was tired of being misjudged, maligned, and bullied. We are not called to hide from the world, but to affect change in it. Clearly, this is not the right response for this season.

Yet, how do we interact with the world and protect our hearts at the same time? I mean, I don't necessarily care if people misjudge me, but they often do negative things to me because of this mis-judging. Whether that is gossiping about me or trying to cause me problems with other people, I want to avoid these negative responses that come from the blindness of others.

My goal is to both keep myself safe and show people that there are good and honest hearts out there. If I respond in kind to their actions, I have not fulfilled the latter goal. However, if I let people walk all over me, I have not fulfilled the former goal. I suppose if I continue to be myself, the purity of Yahweh will shine through and people can either accept it or not.

Still, I am frustrated, though I am happy to have learned something. Interacting with people is probably the most confusing thing, but I am starting to be excited about figuring out pieces of the puzzle like tonight. I love how Yahweh teaches us new things!

Respect

I can't believe I didn't see it before. The part of the word "spect" clearly has to do with the root word of vision or looking.

Yes, respect means look again. It comes from latin. "Re-" back and "specere" look at.

That gives a whole new meaning to the word, doesn't it. People say they want respect. I guess they mean they want to be looked at as worth something and estimable. They want to be looked at again and again so that they feel valuable.

To me, there is no point in looking again until you look deeper. Why look at something another time if you're not going to see more than you did the first time you saw it?

To me, respect means "see with the eyes of Christ." Look again at a situation, person, fear, circumstance, until you see it with Yahweh's eyes.

Respect your fears and you will see they are not worth fearing.
Respect your elders and you will learn something from them each time.
Respect your situations and circumstances and you will see why you're really in them.
Respect your fellow man and you will see the Promise of Yahweh that they embody.
Respect yourself and you will learn who you really are and how valuable you have been created to be.
Respect your God and He will teach you all things, give you all things... even Himself.

Teacher Appreciation Week

Today was the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week. Our PTO was awesome and got us many goodies including chocolate (which I didn't need, but ate anyway) and dry erase markers (which I always need). Actually, this was probably the best Teacher Appreciation Week I have ever seen.

Teaching is a hard profession, especially in May, which is why I think they put Teacher Appreciation Week in this month. We are always scrambling to wrap up the school year and pull one more essay out of our kids, finish the state tests, complete all the mountains of required paperwork, pack up our classrooms, and file professional development requests. In fact, the "last day of school" is never the "last day of school."

I don't think anyone really knows how hard teaching is unless they are a teacher or a single parent. The only people I've talked to who really understand the difficulties of constantly being on duty on behalf of others are teachers, single parents, and parents of more than six kids. Everybody thinks they know how hard teaching is because they went to school and so they saw it being done. Also, teachers get summer off, and who doesn't love that? (Of course, our paychecks reflect that, too.) Yet, only those who have been there in some way know what it is like to have a profession that requires you to pour into others constantly. Let's just say, we earn those summers!

I had an ironic conversation with my seventh grade girls this past week. We were discussing life in general and the ACT and college in particular. I happened to mention that I got a 21 on the ACT the first time I took it when I was 12. I had already told them that the ACT covers things from about 8-10th grade and that the highest score on the test is a 36. They were surprised at how smart I was. I then told them how I skipped 2 grades, started college at 16, and graduated with a BA at 20. (I swear I've told them this before, but they forget, you know.)

Their faces awed and their eyes wide, they asked, "Why are you a teacher? You could've been something better!"

I was not at all offended and they were not being rude. (Not that they've never been known for that; they are twelve-year-old girls!) They were genuinely curious why I could choose a profession that paid so little and was clearly difficult when I could have done anything I wanted. Some of the comments I heard included that I could've made more money and not had to deal with bratty kids. They floated alternative jobs to me: doctor, veterinarian, policeman, actress. I smiled as I listened to them suggest other career paths, gently telling them why those jobs weren't for me. (Blood=gross, though I did consider being a pediatrician.)

I told the kids that I loved language and I loved kids and I wanted to share my love of language with them. My kids know me well enough by now to realize that I love them, I think, even when I yell and make them do hard projects. I loved having this conversation with them. Getting to have real conversations with my students is one of the most delightful aspects of my job.

Still, it saddened me to realize that this is how people view the teaching profession. I was not surprised, however. We've all heard the old saying, "Those who can't do, teach!" I think society as a whole thinks that teachers are people who couldn't hack it in the "real world" or who weren't smart enough or otherwise capable enough of doing something better. Ninety percent of news stories about teachers are negative. It is assumed that those who demand things like more pay, more support, and less government interference in our classrooms are troublemakers who don't care about their students. I don't understand why anyone would choose teaching as a profession if they did not care about their students. It's certainly not for the money or working conditions.

Really, I can't imagine doing anything else (except writing, which I do anyway). Business doesn't interest me, I neither enjoy nor excel at physical labor, I get this funny feeling at the sight or smell of blood, and I want to stay out of certain situations that other professions might bring me face-to-face with. Believe me, I already see more than I thought to in my current profession.

Teaching is difficult, but what makes teaching difficult is also what makes it worthwhile. My students break my heart on a regular basis. It is difficult to go into work each day knowing that I am fighting that, fighting generational curses that I don't even know, fighting poverty, ignorance, laziness, and fear. I fight on behalf of others and I've only so recently begun to conquer these things on behalf of myself.

I long to save my students from the heartbreak that I went through, and what makes teaching so difficult is knowing that I cannot. Ultimately, they have to make their own decisions. They can receive what I am sharing with them, recognize its value, or they cannot. They can fight me tooth and nail and get nowhere or they can put forth the effort to move from where they are and grow into a place of prosperity. They are ultimately in Yahweh's hands and they will have to meet Him for themselves one day and make their own decisions regarding Him.

I don't understand why society as a whole doesn't see the value in teaching and in teachers. Some people see the value in teachers, I know. I have met some of these people. Still, as a whole, society doesn't value us and I can tell you that because of the support we get. If society valued us, instead of being treated like lazy bums who just aren't getting America's students up to standards, society would look at the system of public education as a whole, the breakdown of the nuclear family, the increase in national poverty, and see that there are situations and circumstances that are beyond the control of the teachers who go into a classroom on a daily basis and fight these situations and circumstances anyway.

Because we are the optimists, the dreamers, the warriors. We are the ones who are willing to go into a no-win situation and believe we can win anyway. We are the ones who dream of a better future and are willing to fight for it on behalf of others. We are teachers, and we are valuable.

So I would like to thank our local PTO and all of the others who support us teachers as we go into battle on a daily basis against the powers and principalities of darkness and bring light by which to see. Just as a warrior cannot fight in a battle without supplies and support, so we cannot do our jobs without resources and backup.

Perhaps if we had more of that, our education system would be a little more successful.

And to all my fellow teachers: Thank you! You are doing an amazing job just by showing up every day and loving those children. I know how you feel. Keep going! It is hard to see it now, but we win in the end.